Monthly Archives: May 2019

Last week in Parashat Kedoshim we read one of the most enlightened passages in the Torah. In verse 14 the Torah commands us not to curse the deaf, nor to trip the blind, but to fear the Lord your God. This verse is embedded within a glorious section about social solidarity, including concern for the elderly, the poor, the vulnerable worker. It climaxes with the centerpiece of the Torah, but love your neighbor as yourself, I am God. These verses are all important, but the command not to take advantage of people with physical disabilities is perhaps most notable and noble:

Savor that verse, because unfortunately, it is not all that Leviticus has to say about disability, as we heard today when we read the portion. Parashat Emor opens with regulations about the priesthood, their marriage partners and mandate to maintain ritual purity. Fair enough, but then in chapter 21 there is an extensive passage about physical blemishes that disqualify the priests from serving at the Temple altar. Let’s read this painful passage together:

If you look closely at the passage, you’ll notice some interesting features. First, there are 12 blemishes listed. This is hardly an exhaustive list of things that can go wrong with our bodies, so either there is something very special about these conditions, or the list could be paradigmatic—just examples of the endless litany of injury and disease. Indeed, the rabbis counted 142 disqualifying blemishes in Mishnah Bekhorot, Chapter 7 (מומים אלו), including the deaf and the mute. So much for our progressive attitude. Continue reading →

Advertisements

Share this:

Ze’ev Wilhelm Falk was a professor of law at Hebrew University who also served as rector and faculty at the Schechter institute in Jerusalem. Born in Breslau in 1923, he fled Germany alone at 16, arriving in Israel in 1939, and went on to study in the Hevron yeshivah and then at Hebrew University. He is best known as a scholar of religious law and ethics (I lived near his home on HaRav Berlin in 1991 and bought a copy of his book of this title from him), but he also wrote poetry and prayers. If you look at the Yom HaShoah section of the daily Siddur Sim Shalom (p.202), you will find a powerful prayer that he wrote called “Silence” (דומיה):

Avinu Malkenu—Is it possible that our prayer is not acceptable to You? Attend those who are bereft—You are silent in the presence of the blood of sucklings! You stood by as the blood of Your children was shed—has Your strength failed. Our prayer is diminished, our Torah has been compromised. Listen to the sound of our silence.

In this poem Falk juxtaposes the words דם (blood) and דום (silent) to great effect. Human prayer is voiced but unheard—it might as well be silence. Babies bleed and cry—but elicit no divine response. What became of the listening and responsive God who spoke to Cain, saying, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil” (Gen. 4:10, trans. Alter). What of Ezekiel’s image of Israel as a bloody baby taken up by God and told to live (Ez. 16:6)? What of the “still small voice” that greeted Elijah (1 Kg 19:12)? Rabbinic literature often states, “when X happened, the strength of Y failed (תשש כחו).” But here it is God whose strength has failed (תש כחך), and as a result, so too have the prayers and Torah of Israel failed. Suffering, screams, and supplications—none of it matters, so it seems, to the silent God. In a bitter closing, the poet instructs God to listen to the sound of our silence. After the Shoah, we literally give God the silent treatment. Continue reading →